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Coffee Talk
+ HMA: Bond sale? What bond sale?
Just two days after Naples-based Health Management Associates said it would sell $400 million worth of bonds, the hospital company abruptly canceled the sale.
In a terse statement, the company said on April 6 it cancelled the sale "due to market conditions." Well, Coffee Talk knows the bond market didn't implode that week, so "market conditions" probably wasn't the whole story.
Indeed, HMA spokesman John Merriwether says the pricing of the bonds didn't turn out to be what was expected. Still, the investment banks selling the bonds and advising HMA weren't exactly second-tier firms. Merrill Lynch and Citigroup Global Markets were scheduled to sell the bonds, though no pricing had been listed in the prospectus filed with securities regulators. Wouldn't Merrill and Citi have a good idea how to price the bonds before the sale? "You would think so," Merriwether tells Coffee Talk. Merrill and Citi officials couldn't be reached.
Meanwhile, HMA says it's close to announcing an alternative form of financing it plans to announce sometime in the next few weeks. "We think it's good for investors. It's being prudent," Merriwether says. Stay tuned.
+ Film fest puts on a profitable show
Sarasota residents love movies, and they spent the cash to prove it the last few weeks. This year's Sarasota Film Festival was the most financially successful to date - more ticket sales, more people attending events and increased corporate sponsorship.
The festival's executive director, Jody Kielbasa, said he leaves the numbers to the bean counters of the world, preferring to focus on the festival's intangible triumphs.
"Success is not always measured by statistics," Kielbasa says. "It's measured by the art and the stature that the festival has gained. There's no question - hands down, slam dunk, nuclear blast off into outer space - this is far and away the most successful festival we've ever had."
Kielbasa said final numbers for attendance and revenue would be available in a couple of weeks, but he's confident this year's total will be the best in the eight-year history of the festival. The money goes directly back into next year's festival.
+ Boston developer scouts for deals from Tampa to Naples
Evidence of Southwest Florida's growth has popped up on the radar of The Davis Cos., a longtime Boston development company that has developed more than $1 billion worth of real estate in 30-plus years.
The company is scouting sites in Southwest Florida and plans to do about $200 million in deals in the corridor stretching from Tampa to Naples, says Bill McAvoy, the company's chief investment officer.
Davis Cos. just bought a 76,000-square-foot medical-office complex adjacent to North Collier Hospital in Naples and has made an offer on about 200 acres in an undisclosed part of Lee County. McAvoy says the company plans to open an office in Southwest Florida this year.
+ Demand goes up, rents rise
The Tampa Bay area's office market moved up to fourth place in 2006 on the Marcus & Millichap ranking of the country's major commercial real estate markets, thanks to a strong local economy spurred by company expansion and corporate relocation.
That's good news for landlords and bad news for companies, since rents are projected to rise 4.2% this year, according to the report. The Interstate 75 corridor is forecast to outperform, with rent growth of more than 5%. The I-75 market is projected to end the year with a 13% vacancy rate, compared to 24% in mid-2004 when WorldCom vacated a large amount of space following its bankruptcy.
Tampa Bay area property values are expected to climb even more this year because it's generally cheaper to buy an existing building and renovate it than construct a new one, states the report.
+ In memoriam
Coffee Talk was saddened to hear about the death of Brent Craven, the former CEO of a Tampa online education company and one-time St. Petersburg resident. Craven was profiled in an executive session in the Aug. 29, 2003 Review, focusing on his role has head of RedVector.com, an online education Web site catering to the construction, engineering and architecture industries.
Craven, 36, died March 30 after taking his own life due to a mental illness he had struggled with for years, his family said in published reports. Craven recently moved with his wife and three children to the Savannah, Ga.-area.
Craven, a native of Lebanon, Ind., came to St. Petersburg in 1998 to run RedVector.com; the company grew considerably in 2001 and 2002, generating about $5 million in revenue in 2003, $1 million of which Craven said was profit. Craven, who also ran his own public relations firm, won a business-related award from Gov. Jeb Bush and was well known in Pinellas County education circles for his leadership behind the successful effort to bring a fundamental high school to the county.
In the Review, Craven said his feelings on success were that "the biggest thing that motivates me is being told it can't be done. That inspires me." His ambition was to "be semi-retired or capable of being semi-retired by the time I'm 45."
Contributions may be made to a trust for Craven's children established with MacDill Federal Credit Union. An online guestbook is available at www.andersonmcqueen.com.
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